The Sun and I
by Danny Barefoot
Summary: Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle are Celestia's personal students. Will they take up the Elements of Harmony, or will their friendship fail the test? Hasbro own MLP:FiM. Please read and review.


"Please take care of Twilight Sparkle as her Senior, Sunset Shimmer. You are my treasured students together, from this day forth."

Princess Celestia's eyes were liquid light, far above little Twilight's head. Her voice was warm gold; High Queen, Best-beloved Schoolteacher. And she had chosen a plain, bookish filly as her protégé, at the world's paramount school for unicorns. Twilight had loved her at first sight, and rejoiced.

When Sunset Shimmer trotted over the carpet before the throne, she loved her and despaired.

"Ooo, um…" Twilight fiddled with her spectacles, "Hello, Miss Shimmer."

"Call me Sunset." Her grin flashed, too bright, "I've heard you're quite the prodigy. Some competition will be refreshing."

Sunset Shimmer had three years on Twilight. From her stunning mane, through the unquenchably cocksure curve of her lip, to the royal sun sat proud on her flank, she seemed flawless. The heroine of her life's adventure story. All that a Princess's protégé should be.

Feeling drab and misplaced as she was certain she looked, Twilight trembled. Until the Princess laid a hoof on her shoulder and her horn on Sunset's, with a gentle smile.

"My little ponies, there will be no need for competition or rivalry; I see sparks of greatness in you both. I expect you to support each other in your studies. And I truly hope that you will grow to be friends."

-0-

-0-

Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns was dispersed between the west annex of the palace, and several buildings in the grounds. As Sunset Shimmer trotted between the lawns and ivory towers, knots of unicorns turned heads and took notice. Twilight followed very slightly behind her, hugging a book with her foreleg.

"You'll have one day weekly with the Princess," Sunset was telling her, "Same as me– and we'll share a weekly meeting. She does have to run the greatest kingdom in the world. You'll need two more days to complete the Princess's assignments, leaving five days for normal lessons with the herd."

"Um, that's an eight day week."

"That's what you'll need, Missy. Will you room in the dorms? You should. I mean to get to know you, and ponies might think you were, ah, less than committed if you didn't board. Capisce?" Twilight hadn't the breath in her throat to reply. Condescendingly, Sunset tossed her head, "I suppose this has all rather overwhelmed you. The Princess is astonishing isn't she?"

Twilight nodded hard; amazed at Sunset's insight, missing her faint proprietorial air.

"Mmm, she's astounding! The greatest pony in Equestria! At my first Summer Sun Celebration, I saw her raise the sun–that was the moment I knew I wanted–"

"To be a Princess?" Sunset's voice was light–as the rush of heat from a furnace.

A few students passing within earshot stopped dead. Their bearing was respectful towards Sunset, Twilight realised, but not comfortable at all…

"Ah, oh no! I could never run a nation, or be so great…I just want to learn the most incredible powers that I can, Miss Sunset."

With a smile that was hard to define, Sunset Shimmer tapped little Twilight's chin with her polished hoof.

"Your entrance exam was, ah, memorable. I'm sure you were the smartest pony in your old school, Twilight Sparkle. But you will not be the smartest here. If we must work together, you must not hold me back. I expect your studies to be the centre of your life."

It was Twilight's eyes, bright and suddenly unafraid, that replied before her voice.

"I think….maybe we will be friends, Sunset."

-0-

-0-

That evening, Twilight Sparkle parted with tears from her parents, brother and Smarty Pants doll, and moved into the dorms. With four-posters and red velvet drapes they were probably the most extravagant dormitories in Equestria. They also held a crowd of older fillies who did not leave her long unmolested;

"Are you Twilight Sparkle? Princess Celestia's new student?"

"You really skipped a grade? You're so cuuute! So different from, you know, Sunset…"

"How did you hatch that dragon egg?"

"Do your parents really publish the Daring Doo books?"

"Have you met A. ? Can you help me meet her? Can we be friends?"

As Twilight promptly retreated from the dormitory building towards the library, a barrage of chords poured from the far end of the corridor.

"That's Sunset Shimmer," A friendly lime-green unicorn told her, "Seniors get their own rooms, and, well, she uses hers to play a lot of guitar. She's won every prize in sport as well. Quite the perfect student, until that business with the mirror…"

The unicorn, Lyra Heartstrings, seemed unwilling to say more. Twilight didn't tarry longer. Sunset's guitar was technically superb, but sounded more to her like a savage battle than a song.

Twilight was still flustered when she reached the library. It took hours of rememorizing the textbooks she had memorized weeks before her entry exam, before she remembered she wasa personal student of Celestia at PCSGU. Everything was going to be fine.

With a short bedtime prayer to Lualus the Divine Alicorn (which she wouldn't have dared to say in front of her dormitory), she curled up under the table to sleep, at around midnight. Many more of the happiest nights of her schooldays would pass the same way.

-0-

-0-

Even after the year's classes began in earnest, the student body seemed to have little less time to interrogate Twilight about the Princess and her lessons, friendship and favours…she would have been overwhelmed, if she hadn't had so many books to hide in. It was honestly a relief when most of the older fillies gave up–Twilight was sure they would have quickly found her a dull companion anyway.

Even her dazzling Princess seemed more inclined to discuss her students' lives and thoughts in great detail than impart fantastic secret knowledge. Though Sunset drank up Celestia's words like water on a desert, Twilight never saw her look pleased, or satisfied. Of course, she probably had her hooves less full than Twilight with the regular lessons.

The Unicorns' Gift, allegedly given by Lualus for the purpose of stewarding and exploring His creation, was essentially manipulation of the universe by techniques reliant on will and imagination. Practically, it was like rearranging a three-dimensional puzzle that was at once as immovable as steel, fragile as taffy and formless as water. Twilight had been very pleased with the few simple techniques she had mastered, as well as her famous dragon-hatching exam. But after a week of endless levitation practise and super-dense theory, she felt desperately inadequate in every way.

It wasn't that the curriculum was impassable; Twilight's efforts would have done justice to a course still more severe. It was knowing that she was the Princess's student, unable to put a hoof wrong anywhere, that made her cram, scrape and sweat. For a fortnight, until her laughter draught suddenly fizzed, and filled the potions lab with pink smoke.

Moondancer quickly put out the burner and added a neutralizing agent, but the class still ended up guffawing until Twilight's sides and stomach ached. Professor Topaz explained that Twilight had taken Bom-bom pods instead of Heart's Desire from the supply cupboard, and that it might be necessary to exclude her from practical lessons, unless she was much more careful in future.

Twilight heard, silently completed the lesson, then collapsed under her bed in the dormitory, staring and shaking. She would have hugged her knees until nightfall, paralysed by despair, if Sunset Shimmer hadn't bustled into the room, with two Royal Guards and a shrill, silver-haired filly.

"I demand to hear the meaning of this! The Oh-so-Amazing Trixie will not tolerate–!" Twilight could tell she was actually very scared, as much of Sunset as the pegasus Guards.

"Trixie? Shut up. Twilight? Come out. A Princess's student has to be stronger than this." Twilight crawled out, wondering if the disastrous potion was about to get her arrested, "Trixie Lulumoon, meet Twilight Sparkle. The filly who has been working like a horse all week, thrilled to study at the greatest school in Equestria. Until somepony switched her potion ingredients, and very nearly got her excluded from a key module!"

"S-switched? Oh no, you don't know that." Trixie blustered, flicking her hair. A Guard cautiously mentioned that, without evidence–

"–that the seeds were switched, and the culprit was you, Trixie?" Sunset trotted back and forth for a moment, as if more accustomed to denouncing criminals than Shadow Spade. Her mane almost blazed with righteous fury; scared as Twilight was, she could not take her eyes off her, "Firstly, you've been complaining about Twilight's grades, and alleged arrogance–pot, meet kettle–all week. Second, you entered the potions store cupboard immediately before Twilight, to switch the labels. Thirdly, you left your safety specs in the cupboard, as a pretext to return and switch them back. Fourth and conclusively, I've already used a detection technique on your whole class. Only Twilight Sparkle and you, Trixie, had Bom-bom spores on their hooves!"

"Ha! Nonsense! There are no spores on my hooves, I used my horn to switch…oh, horseapples." Both Guards snorted with laughter; Sunset simply applauded, as did Twilight, "It…was just a joke! I tried to be friends with her, but she wouldn't even speak to me, the Great and Wonderful Trixie, just to rub it in that she's Celestia's prize student!"

"I..I just wanted to study," Twilight whispered, "I didn't know you felt like that…"

Trixie was too busy working herself into hysterics to reply. Sunset gave Twilight a look that told her not to bother, then turned back to the blubbering blue filly with a burning glare.

"Your 'joke' could have affected Twilight's entire future! Apologise to her, now." Trixie mumbled an apology, "Now, these gentlecolts will take you to Princess Celestia, and you will confess to her, so Twilight cannot possibly be excluded from practical classes. Otherwise the whole school will hear what you did. Don't worry; keep blubbing and the Princess may go easy on you."

With a small scream, Trixie was hustled out by the Guards. Twilight ran to Sunset Shimmer, fiddling with her glasses in nervous excitement.

"Um…thank you! You didn't have to get so angry for me, but that was amazing! I didn't know you could command the Royal Guard, can I do that?"

"We can't, actually. I ordered, they assumed I could," Sunset gently pushed Twilight away, "Had to keep the frighteners on, to make her slip up. And don't thank me. I didn't do it for you."

After a very woeful confession, Trixie was let off with a warning. Sunset also received a stern warning in her next meeting with the Princess, against abusing her position with the Royal Guard.

"I'd also like you to tutor Miss Lulamoon for the rest of the term, and do all you can to keep an eye on her. I sense great danger of her heading down the wrong path."

"Of course, Princess. Even if I'm the one getting punished, instead of Trixie..."

"Will you deny her forgiveness, when you have received it yourself?"

Sunset flinched away, as if from the glare of the Sun. "I'm sorry Princess. Just, please…tell me what you want from me!"

"I believe I told you when this year began, Sunset. And I believe you certainly have it within you to fulfil my wish."

Distracted by the thought that she perhaps should be busy as Sunset to keep in the Princess's favour, Twilight didn't ask more about the forgiveness. When she passed the dorm on her way to the library, hours later, she heard the furious howl of Sunset's guitar from the lawn outside.

Twilight was now sure of something she found very difficult to understand. Sunset was beautiful, gifted, absurdly confident, and everything Twilight had never been. But, like Twilight, she didn't seem to have a single friend.

-0-

-0-

A week after the potions incident Twilight was called to demonstrate a growth technique to her class. She made a tiny omission, and it fizzled. She tried again, and again, panic rising over her like water, until the teacher insisted she sit back down.

"I-I can do it, Sir! I know I can–!"

"Not in the state you're in, Miss Sparkle. Please sit down."

Silently, avoiding every pair of eyes, and Trixie's smirk, she got through the rest of the lesson. She went to leave the classroom with silently grinding teeth, screaming and abusing herself in her head…until she stepped into the corridor, and Sunset Shimmer was there.

Student flowed around them both, as Twilight stared. She didn't understand how this Pony could so infallibly be there, every time she felt ready to break. Or how those cornflower eyes could be warmer than blazing hearths–she simply ran in, and Sunset hugged the filly to her strong neck. It was some time before they needed to speak.

"That's enough now, Twilight. You're good. You're tough, capice? Just please stop hiding in the library all night. You've read enough medical textbooks to know ponies need sleep."

"W-why are you doing this?" Twilight gasped, "Being so nice, watching over me…I thought you didn't even like me! Princess Celestia's new student, I thought you were…"

"Jealous? Me?" Sunset grinned, "I admit the Princess's favour means a lot to me, and her order was to take care of you. But I wouldn't be here right now, except I know you're trying. Harder than anypony in this school. Even when you're falling apart you sparkle, brighter than…uh, if you tell anyone I said that, I'll get you back for it!"

"Okay! Promise. So long as you promise…that we can be friends?"

It was desire that Twilight Sparkle had never felt in her life, bursting on her, like love in a Mills and Hooves novel. Sunset looked rather surprised herself.

"…alright. I could buy you a coffee? And we could talk about the Princess's assignment, if we don't have to do something else…?"

"I don't know. I don't really know what friends are supposed to do. But I've got a few ideas for that assignment!" Sunset grinned back, and clicked her hoof against Twilight's.

It turned out that Sunset had only skimmed the philosophical works Celestia had set for them. But she talked so engagingly about the concepts that Twilight promised to supply a complete summary.

When Sunset's grade jumped 5% that week, and Celestia complimented her insight, she promised Twilight a giant hay ice cream. Both Ponies left the room walking on sunbeams. Twilight knew that Sunset Shimmer was her friend, and everything was going to be fine.

And Celestia watched the two fillies from her tower, as they trotted across the palace courtyard. Then she looked at the flag fluttering from every tower–the black and the white Alicorn–and smiled as much from joy as grief.


End file.
